Here’s a San Francisco market update, based on some story swapping and shared opinions at our sales meeting today (at Paragon we meet every couple of weeks). Keep in mind that what follows is highly subjective – much of it is based on anecdotal evidence.

This past August was the slowest market we’ve seen in the past ten years in terms of number of closed sales. My personal opinion is that this was due to an incredible dearth of good inventory.

Since Labor Day, open house traffic has slowed down for certain properties.

District 5 (Noe, Glen Park, Haight, Upper Market) single family homes are experiencing less activity if they are priced over $1,000,000.

Buyers who were burned by the heated summer market are fearful of multiple offer situations and holding back. The result is far fewer offers on a property. Some are receiving no offers at all on their offer date.

If interest rates rise, there could be a spike in demand as buyers decide to get into the market while it’s still affordable.

Properties perceived as good values are expecting multiple offers. One of Paragon’s listings—a good-sized single family home in Noe Valley listed just under a million– had exceptionally high open house activity.

Relative to the past, there is substantial inventory right now— a lot of new properties hit the market after Labor Day. We expect the buyer demand to absorb the additional properties and anticipate a more balanced market soon (i.e. this is a great time to buy).

We predict a strong stable market as we move towards the end of the year. No more wild appreciation, but good, solid growth.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 21st, 2005 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Market Conditions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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